Metaverse has a “three-year action plan” and the industrial sector will take the lead

Reporter: Qu Zhongfang

The Metaverse, which was popular before generative AI, disappeared before it was realized? But in fact, it’s not.

Recently, the five departments of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, and the State Administration of Radio and Television jointly issued the “Three-Year Action Plan for the Innovation and Development of the Yuanshi Industry (2023-2025)” (hereinafter referred to as the “Action”). plan"). The “Action Plan” clarifies that the Metaverse is “a future industry that integrates innovation and application of new generation information technology, and is an advanced form of integration of the digital and real economies” and proposes that “by 2025, Metaverse will achieve breakthroughs in technology, industry, application, governance, etc.” , becoming an important growth pole of the digital economy." At the same time, many places across the country have intensively released development plans, measures and action plans for the Metaverse and related industries, vying for opportunities to develop the Metaverse industry track.

In addition to policy-level support, reporters from China Business News learned from multiple sources that industrial manufacturing and other industries are continuing to explore the commercial value of Yuanverse-related technology applications and immersive experiences. According to IDC predictions, by 2026, 20% of China’s leading industrial companies will add the industrial metaverse to their digital roadmap to solve the challenges of complex business simulation, remote collaboration, and data security.

“The Action Plan is very pragmatic”

Dr. Yan Yang, deputy secretary-general of the Zhongguancun Big Data Industry Alliance, believes that the “Action Plan” is very pragmatic and enforceable. He pointed out that Yuanverse is positioned as a “future industry integrating innovation and application of new generation information technology”. The term “future industry” here mainly comes from the “New Industry Standardization” issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other four departments in August this year. Pilot Project Implementation Plan (2023-2025)", which focuses new industries on emerging industries in 8 major fields and future industries in 9 major fields. Among them, the new generation of information technology belongs to emerging industries, and the Metaverse is classified in the future. industry.

The “Action Plan” clearly states that the main goal is to build an industrial metaverse and empower the manufacturing industry. From the perspective of development goals, by 2025, the comprehensive strength of my country’s Yuanshi industry will reach the world’s advanced level. Cultivate 3-5 ecological enterprises with global influence and a group of “specialized, special and innovative” small and medium-sized enterprises, and create 3-5 industrial development clusters. The development of the industrial metaverse has achieved initial results, creating a number of typical applications and forming a number of benchmark production lines, factories, and parks. Yuanverse’s typical software and hardware products have achieved large-scale application, forming a number of new businesses, new models, and new formats in the fields of daily consumption and public services. In the long term, the key core technologies of the Metaverse will achieve major breakthroughs and form a world-leading Metaverse industrial ecosystem. Create a mature industrial metaverse and develop a new manufacturing growth model in which reality and reality reinforce each other. Build a ubiquitous, universal, and non-sensory metaverse space to promote the overall improvement of human production and lifestyle. Form a safe and efficient metaverse governance system and create a healthy and sustainable industrial development environment.

The “Action Plan” puts forward 14 key points from five aspects: building advanced metaverse technology and industrial systems, cultivating a three-dimensional interactive industrial metaverse, creating immersive interactive digital life applications, building systematic and complete industrial support, and building a safe and trustworthy industrial governance system. Task. Among them, it is required to strengthen the integrated innovation of key technologies. The key technologies of the Metaverse cover data circulation, content production, digital twins, sensory interaction, network and computing technologies, etc.

The “Action Plan” also proposes “building an industrial ecology for coordinated development” and proposes “four”, namely developing “famous products” of the Metaverse, cultivating “famous enterprises” of the Metaverse, creating “famous districts” of the Metaverse and creating “celebrities” of the Metaverse . Yan Yang pointed out that it should be noted that the “celebrities” here not only refer to outstanding entrepreneurs, technical experts and outstanding creators, but also include cultivating a group of well-known digital people and creating benchmark products and brands for digital people.

In addition, in terms of “exploring innovative application models of the industrial metaverse”, it is required to build an industrial metaverse digital identity management platform and build a full-link trusted identification service system. Build an industrial data asset service platform and explore industrial data rights confirmation, pricing, transaction and circulation mechanisms. Realize the empowerment of “Industrial Metaverse+” in production lines, factories, and parks.

In Yan Yang’s view, the “Action Plan” is very pragmatic overall and is undoubtedly good news for the upstream and downstream industries of the Metaverse, especially in further accelerating the construction of my country’s industrial Metaverse and the digital upgrading of the manufacturing industry. .

Accelerating the construction of the industrial metaverse

The emergence of the Metaverse can be traced back to the listing of the gaming company Roblox in March 2021 - the first time the concept of the Metaverse was linked to a listed company with a market value of tens of billions of dollars. Subsequently, this new track attracted investors including NVIDIA, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. All parties, including technology giants, are scrambling to lay out their plans. In particular, Facebook changed its name to Meta Platforms in October of the same year to reflect its determination to transform into a metaverse. However, in the next two years, as a future industry with integrated innovation and application of new generation information technology, the commercial value of Metaverse has not yet been reflected and released. According to Gartner’s “Technology Hype Cycle” rules, new technologies often go through a “technological embryonic period”, a “bubble burst trough period” and a “steady climb and recovery period” before reaching the production maturity stage.

Susan Galer, head of brand communications at SAP, noted that the initial Metaverse hype has settled and industrial manufacturers are looking at how immersive experiences in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) can bring real value to their organizations. Ralf Heindoerfer, product lead for mixed reality solutions at SAP, said manufacturers are not specifically asking about the Metaverse, but they are looking for advanced technologies to replicate real-world experiences. “Some leaders in industry are realizing that components of virtual worlds such as virtual reality and augmented reality can allow employees to collaborate, make smarter decisions and increase efficiency. This extends from product design to factory line production and quality control, Warehouse delivers logistics and transportation as well as maintenance.”

The person in charge of Liangfengtai, a domestic AR technology company, told reporters that the company, centered on the AR computing platform HiAR Space, provides standardized products and solutions to multiple industries and accelerates the implementation of industrial metaverse scenarios. Previously, Liangfengtai participated in the “Shanghai Action Plan to Cultivate a New Track for the “Yuanverse” (2022-2025)”, “Shanghai Action Plan for Key Technology Research on the “Yuanverse” (2023-2025)” and “Shanghai City’s Action Plan to Create a New Track for the “Yuanverse””. Expert advice and research and demonstration on policy content such as the Cultural Tourism Metaverse New Track Action Plan (2023-2025).

The person in charge of Liangfengtai introduced that the company’s digital intelligence on-site workspace tool “Tiangong Digital Intelligence” provides a variety of spatial visualization functional components to achieve code-free menu-based configuration workflow, natural interaction of spatial mini-programs, and convenient integration of functional modularity etc., making it possible for the rapid and large-scale application of AR in industry and other fields, realizing “using numbers to promote reality” and “using virtuality to strengthen reality”. Just in the second quarter of this year, Liangfengtai and Baowu Group reached a cooperation on creating key application scenarios of the “Steel Smart Supply Chain Metaverse”. This project uses the large-scale scenario of the steel raw material belt conveyor process industry as the application entry point to build an industrial metaverse demonstration platform, integrating people, machines, materials and the digitization of management elements to create an industrial metaverse demonstration scenario to solve production, equipment operation management and Pain points and difficult issues in personnel security.